He wanted to talk to the pretty girls but he was out of practice. He did not want to assume false personalities. He did not want to flatter. He did not want to feign curiosity. He could not endure the small talk and the pall of possible rejection. Most of all he could not bear the politics. He did not want to be thought a chauvinist. He did not want to talk with suspicious feminists. He wanted a friend and a companion. He did not want to think about power dynamics, about bisexuality, about “liberation.” Especially when liberation meant coffee shops full of silent and lonely people. He wanted to split a bottle of wine with a girl and stumble through the woods with her. But it would never happen. Not without schedules, phone calls, a petty argument about who would pay for the wine, about who would be the designated driver, about prophylaxis, about how all men are bastards. It was a wonder there was simple love at all in the world anymore.